Join thousands of other teachers around the world receiving genuinely helpful words from Mrs Learning Bee
SHARE
āØ Take what you need this week!
Welcome to your weekly POWER Up! Iām here to support you with simple, actionable strategies, ideas, resources and freebies!
P = Personal šš¼āāļø
Spring is finally in the air, and oh my gosh, I'm ready for it! I feel like I've had a never-ending cold and cough for the past couple of months - anyone else the same?!
O = On the 'gram š²
In case you missed it, here's some of what's been popular over on Instagram lately.
Last week we discussed teaching trends that are actually worth it. And unfortunately, the science of reading is another trend that really is worth the hype.
I knowwww. Another bandwagon. Another thing it just seems like everyone has decided they're doing now. And I've been banging on about it lonnnnng before it got popular, so I'm hardly a neutral party here!
But the objection I take most seriously is this one: that explicit, sequenced phonics is drill and kill, and it takes the joy out of reading.
You cannot love something you can't do. Kids who can't decode fluently don't choose books for pleasure. They avoid them.
And none of this means a classroom stripped of stories. The read-alouds stay. The beautiful books stay. The big messy discussions about them stay. We just stop asking students to guess at the words underneath.
Most of us were taught to teach the other way, myself very much included. That's not a failing, it's just what good teaching looked like at the time. But when we know better, we do better.
E = Education Tip š”
"Why would I teach a child a word that isn't real?" It's the question I get most often about nonsense words, and it's a fair one.
The answer?? Because it's the only way to know whether a child is decoding or remembering. A child who has memorised twenty words looks like a reader right up until they meet the twenty-first.
Five nonsense words on a whiteboard tomorrow will take you about two minutes. If a child blends their way through, they're decoding. If they stall, they've been leaning on memory or the pictures, and now you know that before the twenty-first word does.
ā
PS - Hive members, don't forget we have an entire nonsense words app that you can tailor to your exact phonics scope & sequence! That way, you don't even have to THINK of your own nonsense words!
R = Resource Spotlight š¦
Today is International Dot Day!! ā Everrrrry class has a kid who looks at a blank page and says "I'm not good at art." I was that kid! A blank page can feel like a test. No starting point, no safety net, and "just have a go!" doesn't always work.
What helps is making the page less blank. One dot. A circle sticker, placed anywhere they like. Suddenly the task isn't make something out of nothing, it's turn this into something, which is a completely different ask for a nervous artist. That dot becomes a hot air balloon, a jellyfish, a planet, a grumpy owl.
Which is the whole idea behind the book. Vashti wasn't missing talent. She was missing a place to start.
So our free print-and-go templates are ready to go for this week - or whenever you want to do this super fun lesson! Read The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds, hand out the dots, and let them go. There are alternate headings in there too, so you can use them at any point in the year rather than only this week.
P.S. Hive members, don't forget we have a matching Dot app that randomly generates a dot for students to turn into a picture... your kids will LOVE it! ā Not a member? Try it out anytime with a 14 day free trial!ā
ā